1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of object manipulation in a graphical user interface (GUI) and more particularly to attribute configuration for objects within a GUI.
2. Description of the Related Art
The modern computing environment incorporates object oriented notions in providing a navigable user interface and underlying program functionality. Object orientation requires the representation of data elements and programmatic logic alike as objects. Objects can include attributes that can be externally accessed for reading, writing or both. Objects further can include methods that can be externally invoked or internally invoked. Objects further can reference other objects such that the arrangement of objects can provide a data model, a program model, or commonly both a data and program model.
The graphical user interface for an operating system often provides a dialog box configured to permit both the viewing of object attributes and also the modification of object attributes. For example, the individual attributes can be presented textually within the dialog box and attributes can be modified for the object in the dialog box by selecting radio buttons, check boxes, sliders and drop-down boxes and by providing text input to text fields of the dialog box. Notably, the attribute settings for an object can be applied to other objects in some cases by selecting a menu choice to do as much. Additionally, an object can inherit the attributes of a related object where the object derives from or implements the related objects.
The object attribute dialog box, often referred to as a “properties” dialog box, can be invoked for an associated object in most cases through a context menu in association with the object. To apply attributes to an object requires the express invocation of the properties dialog box. Consequently, the application of attributes to an object is an indirect manipulation of the object and requires a familiarity on the part of the end user of the graphical user interface providing the properties dialog box.
Recognizing the human factors limitations of menu driven operations, drag-and-drop functionality has been incorporated into the graphical user interface, in particular to facilitate direct manipulation of “cut-copy-paste” operations. Drag-and-drop functionality, however, has not found widespread use for providing direct manipulation of other aspects of graphical user interface interactions.